The street names in the Northwest Side neighborhood called Kendale mostly start with "Ken."

Kenway.

Kenmont.

Kenchester.

Kennington.

Ken-fusing, isn't it?

Even some of the residents of the Kendale subdivision, located off Kenny Road just south of Old
Henderson Road, find the names perplexing.

Kirk Hartman moved to Kenridge Court seven years ago. He said it was an adventure every time he
invited friends to visit.

"No one could find my house," he said. "People were always driving around."

Carolyn Cookston has lived in the neighborhood since 1965. She said that when her kids were
growing up, they knew the streets their friends lived on. But she could never remember. And like
others, she wonders why the developer chose the same "Ken" prefix for more than a dozen
streets.

"I'm the last original owner on the street, and I have no idea," said Cookston, who lives on
Kenley Avenue."Everything around here's
K."

The answer likely is connected to the Kenney property on which the subdivision was built. The
Kenney family owned the property for years, including the land where the Ohio State University Golf
Club was built, said Columbus Public Service spokesman Rick Tilton.

The city annexed property on the east side of Kenny Road in 1958, and the developer platted the
Kendale subdivision in 1961. The developers then named the streets.

This is news to Don Fischer, who has lived on Kenley Avenue since 1974. He and his family had
lived on the South Side and were looking for a bigger house. A friend he sang with in Columbus
Maennerchor lived in the Kendale neighborhood.

"We moved in next door to them," Fischer said.

It was a good move, he said. The commute Downtown to the LeVeque Tower, where he worked as an
accountant for American Steel and Wire, was easy.

David Kaplan lives on Kendale Road S. in a house that was incorporated into the development.
Kaplan said he heard that his house once was a hunting lodge, with an access road leading from
Clearview Avenue.

The house, built in 1924, has a big K on the fireplace. But it's not for Kaplan. Or Kendale. It
was put up by Ralph and Jacquelene Kunkle, who lived in the house in the 1960s.

Before that, the rector of the old Ohio Penitentiary lived there, Kaplan said. The story goes
that there are at least 10 pines on the property, and more on nearby properties, because the rector
would plant a tree whenever a prisoner was executed at the penitentiary.

Ridgeview Middle School students who live in the neighborhood take a pedestrian bridge across
the CSX railroad tracks to get to class. A resident who once was one of those students is Cecelia
Ringel, the goddaughter of longtime neighborhood resident Karen Johnston.

Johnston's parents built their Kenridge Drive house in 1964. She inherited the house in 1992 and
sees no reason to move.

"I can walk my dog at 2 in the morning, and nobody is going to bother me," she said.

Johnston also can look out her back door and see the roof of the school. And she can see the
July 4 fireworks at the nearby Park of Roses from her backyard - most of them, anyway. For a better
view, she climbs the pedestrian bridge.

Frank Zubovich's children took that bridge to school, too. Zubovich retired as Ohio State
University's track coach in 1988.

He and his wife, Janice, moved to Columbus from the Cleveland area to take an assistant coaching
job in 1966.

"It's remained pretty much the same through all these years," Mr. Zubovich said.